


In Dreams I....

by jesseofthenorth



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:51:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesseofthenorth/pseuds/jesseofthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec misses sleep more than he knew he could</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Dreams I....

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Insomnia square on my hc_bingo card

Alec was on  the road for days before he realized he wasn't sleeping right, or even... at all.

It was hard to find any rest out here in the world, away from the relative safety of Seattle and Terminal City.

Alec thought that would change once he got away from the threat and the danger, but it only got worse.  No matter how hard he tried he couldn't seem to get his mind to slow.

The farther he went the harder it was to rest. To sleep.

He knew that for Ordinaries sleep was essential to life. For transgenics the need for sleep was considered a weakness to fight against. At least at Manticore.

In Seattle he had learned it. The habit of sleeping. In his ratty apartment where he shouldn't have felt safe, but did. In a city filled with darkness and tension and freedom, he had learned to let himself go a little.  Even if he knew it wasn't really safe, wasn't really a home.

Everything was all different now.  

Now nowhere was safe. There was freedom of another kind where he could go as far as he wanted and there was no one to notice. No one to care. He stayed safe by never stopping.

Now he couldn't sleep. And even though Alec knew he didn't need it the way _they_ did  Alec missed that moment when he lay down somewhere comfortable and warm, closed his eyes and let the world just... fall away.

No there was no 'comfortable' and sometimes even no warm. There was always looking for the next place to move on to.

He tried LA but the city was locked tight. He tried Las Vegas but they where watching for him. There was no safety for him here. So he turned the bike East and went to find new country.

Alec stopped for gas in a place called Cheyenne and realized he was in Wyoming. He puked up the bag of chips on the pavement before getting on the bike and riding all night. He refused to call the churning in his gut fear.

Alec had no trouble staying awake the rest of the night. It took him an hour to stop shaking. He was in Nebraska by then.

In the late afternoon his vision started to blur and the bike wobbled. Alec felt disconnected from his body as if his mind where a separate thing. It was time to stop.

 There was a barn again, like there had been after that inexplicable bar fight. The one he had neither started nor finished.

The hay was sweet and the floor was dry. Alec drove the bike inside and closed the door. He crawled into the hay and used his jacket for a blanket and closed his eyes.

He could feel the exhaustion pooling  deep in his bones and smiled at the remembrance of that feeling, falling into sleep and oblivion.

It didn't happen. He lay there and watched the sunlight from a high window creep across the floor.

Alec could feel dizziness advancing on him and there was nothing he could do to stop it. All the things they taught him at Manticore all the things he had learned in Seattle no one had ever told him how to sleep when it wasn't safe. He didn't know how to sleep when there was no one standing guard and he didn't feel safe.

He wished again that he had stayed, even though Max was right: staying meant dying. Being dead might be better than this.

Still he lay there, waited. Surely he would sleep? Even if he didn't Alec wouldn't risk the bike or his life trying to ride when it was this bad. He sat up thinking water might help , a  wave of vertigo rolled over him and it was all he could do not to puke again. Once a day was his limit and it hadn't been 24 hours yet.

His eyes were heavy and full of grit and Alec closed them looking for relief. He thought about the view of the city form the top of Max's tower , the way the lights looked spread out. How it had felt the last night he was there city with her not saying anything . Not saying goodbye.

There was some things he missed more than sleep.

It came when he was otherwise engaged, took him back in dreams, to the only small peace he'd ever had.


End file.
